Good idea for your dose pump

[jman930]

Was looking for a way to keep detritus out of reactors. Came across this article:

Prefilters are a MUST For Any Dosing Pump Pulling ‘Live’ Water | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

If you've been reefing for anything beyond a week you already know how much marine life can grow in every area of your reef tank, and how fast it can spread. It's for this reason that every part of…

reefbuilders.com

 

[civics14]

Not sure if that would be a good idea, I can see that clogging up fast and making a total mess of things if you don't keep up with it. I don't know anyone using a prefilter for their dosing pumps and never had any issues. Seems like adding something like this is going to create a problem that didn't exist to begin with.

 

[jman930]

The thought was to replace it often like every other month or as a quarterly thing. The filters are cheap.

 

[hzheng33]

The thought was to replace it often like every other month or as a quarterly thing. The filters are cheap.

I used it before and it’s dependent on how much detritus you have in the sump or how good your mechanical filtration is in the sump.
Mine ended up clogged within a month and during that time the effluent for the calrx has slowed down drastically without me knownjng

 

[civics14]

I used it before and it’s dependent on how much detritus you have in the sump or how good your mechanical filtration is in the sump.
Mine ended up clogged within a month and during that time the effluent for the calrx has slowed down drastically without me knownjng

That's exactly what I would be afraid of. The idea of having detritus getting into the calc reactor is no where as harmful as my Alk/calc plummeting because a clogged prefilter. It doesn't make sense to me at all. Especially with an SPS tank where stability is key.

 

[jman930]

Sounds like the filter did its job. And to both of your points the reduction of the effluent flow would not be good. Do you guys just take the reactors offline, clean them of detritus, put them back?

that seems like more work then swapping a filter.
Oh! Maybe using the flow monitoring on the effluent side could help using the fmm. Then if the flow is reduced you know it’s time to swap the filter. Win-win

 

[morganatlanta]

These seem like a good idea for the "water out" line on an AWC. I have problems with amphipods going up my line and getting stuck at the little inlet on the Kamoer peristaltic tube, partially blocking the flow. I have to check the line at least weekly now to be sure that I don't get salinity drift. You'd still have to check/replace these regularly but they'd be more robust than the situation I have now. I went ahead and ordered some.

 

[hzheng33]

Sounds like the filter did its job. And to both of your points the reduction of the effluent flow would not be good. Do you guys just take the reactors offline, clean them of detritus, put them back?

that seems like more work then swapping a filter.
Oh! Maybe using the flow monitoring on the effluent side could help using the fmm. Then if the flow is reduced you know it’s time to swap the filter. Win-win

i have my calrx without the prefilter and i don't find detrius inside of the calrx as much or causing much issue with the effluent. i only clean out my calrx once a year or once every 1.5 year. so that's ok with me.

 

[civics14]

Sounds like the filter did its job. And to both of your points the reduction of the effluent flow would not be good. Do you guys just take the reactors offline, clean them of detritus, put them back?

that seems like more work then swapping a filter.
Oh! Maybe using the flow monitoring on the effluent side could help using the fmm. Then if the flow is reduced you know it’s time to swap the filter. Win-win

I do the same thing as @hzheng33 and clean out / refill once a year, never had any issues ever with detritus build up in my reactor. Just to note, I do run filter socks as well.

 

[civics14]

These seem like a good idea for the "water out" line on an AWC. I have problems with amphipods going up my line and getting stuck at the little inlet on the Kamoer peristaltic tube, partially blocking the flow. I have to check the line at least weekly now to be sure that I don't get salinity drift. You'd still have to check/replace these regularly but they'd be more robust than the situation I have now. I went ahead and ordered some.

Let us know how it works for you.

 

[morganatlanta]

Just swapped out my first inline mini filter for a new one, after 4 months. It was still working, but just looked grungy so I swapped it out. The mini filter totally eliminated the problem of the inlet of the peristaltic pump getting blocked. 100% success.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08HH9CJHJ